The spectacular white mountains of the Bonanza salt flats in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, the Cadiz town in front of the Doñana Park next to the Guadalquivir where Carmen Laffón lived, inspired the series in which the painter and sculptor poured her energy until the eve of her death, in the early morning of Sunday, November 8, at the age of 87.
More information
A large part of those landscapes featured in a series of exhibitions in Seville, Valladolid and Madrid that, without being able to predict it, have become the last tribute to one of the most important artists of the generation of the fifties. But the great recognition will come posthumously when at the end of November the Reina Sofía museum exhibits its series of eight painted plaster bas-reliefs as a closing to the new route of its permanent collection. Titled The salt (2019) this series has been acquired for the museum by the collectors Helga de Alvear and Mario Losantos for 150,000 euros.
The Sevillian painter Carmen Laffón in 2014. Raúl Caro (EFE)
In the previous version of the museum tour, Laffón was represented with two works –Girlfriend (1960) and Strains (2006-2007) – in a room dedicated to figuration. Now, he will say goodbye to the walk that crosses six floors in a room dedicated to the currents of ecofeminist creation. There will be three groups of pieces by three female artists: one by Victoria Gil, on Saharawi women; another by Joan Jonas, related to his work Moving off The Land. And finally The salt of Laffón. With this piece the viewer ends the tour and will literally leave the top floor. “Although there”, announces the director Manuel Borja-Villel, there will be “a surprise epilogue, the content of which I reserve”.
So in the new exhibition of the collection that the museum has underway, the figurative room where Laffón’s work was until now disappears. Each of the artists exhibited there will be shown elsewhere, including Antonio López, considered the highest representative of postwar figuration. These works and their authors will not appear as a uniform artistic movement.
Work from the series ‘La sal’ by Carmen Laffón. Courtesy of the Leandro Navarro Gallery.
Essential landscape
Manuel Borja-Villel, director of the center, says that the work of Carmen Laffón has always had a very special meaning for him. Not only because she is an artist who has moved with her back to the market and outside the interests of artistic groups, but also because of her personal conception of the landscape. “We were interested in Laffón, and especially in the pieces that we will exhibit, his redefinition of the landscape genre. This has always been seen as a way of reflecting something, nature, that seemed external to the human being. It is clear that this is not the case and that there is a continuum between us and the biosphere. From an apparently classic position, without fanfare, almost modest, she rethinks this type of painting ”, she points out. “In his latest works on the salt flats, the abstract and figurative elements are confused, there is neither an outside nor an inside. He worked insistently on this subject in recent years, but the pieces that caught our attention were these bas-reliefs painted on plaster. They add an element of fragility, which reflects our times in an extraordinary way ”.
Last spring Laffón’s work could be seen in Madrid both in the exhibition at the Botanical Garden, with his large-format oil paintings, and in the Leandro Navarro gallery, where drawings and bas-reliefs were added to the paintings. “I went several times. First as a visitor and then with the intention of seeing what work would make sense in the collection ”, adds Borja Villel. Having made the choice, he spoke with the artist, who was delighted from the first moment.
Work from the series ‘La sal’ by Carmen Laffón. Courtesy of the Leandro Navarro Gallery
The second part of the operation consisted of seeking financing for the purchase, a complicated chapter for the museum. The problem was solved thanks to the generosity of two collectors who regularly collaborate with the center: Helga de Alvear and Mario Losantos.
Landscape has been essential in Laffón’s life. The painter soon decided that her universe was between Seville and Sanlúcar de Barrameda. In an interview with EL PAÍS in 2014, he said that his home and studio were located in that geographic space, his entire area. “Here I was born, raised and lived. I have my vineyard, my fruit trees, the sea, the Coto. Why should I go anywhere else? He also recognized then that his radical independence could be the cause of making few exhibitions outside of Spain. “Some have been done, but that is not important to me either,” he said. Instead, he believed that figuration should be better represented in museums such as the Reina Sofía. “They have posted a work of mine from a long time ago, although I am not going to complain. Others are worse represented ”. Now, on the other hand, she would be satisfied.
